[EDF]Heysham 1: Three hurt in nuclear plant accident

“Power company EDF, which owns Heysham 1 power station, said the employees were taken to hospital following an “accidental steam release”.
The BBC understands one person suffered burns, one a broken hip and the other a broken back.

EDF said Monday night’s incident was not related to the nuclear process and there was no danger to public safety.

The casualties were said to be conscious and speaking when they were taken to hospital.

Five fire crews attended the incident at 22:40 GMT and remained at the site for more than two hours as a precaution.

A spokeswoman for EDF said a “full investigation” would now be carried out to determine the cause. …”

2 thoughts on “[EDF]Heysham 1: Three hurt in nuclear plant accident”

EDF, who faced prosecution following an accident at Hinkley Point, claimed that there was ‘no danger to public safety’ following the accident at Heysham nuclear power station. The local Fire and Rescue Service might have a different view – they sent five fire crews to deal with the accident!
EDF also claimed that the accident was ‘not related to the nuclear process’. One wonders what the three staff, who appear to have suffered very severe injuries, would think of EDF’s statement and its semantics about whether an accident at a nuclear power station was related to the nuclear process.

I suspect that the Health & Safety Executive are going to be all over this. A broken back is a pretty serious accident at work, and they will undoubtedly investigate it fully.

If we take what the article says EDF said as being literal, then it makes them look pretty callous. But we cannot be sure that the news item wasn’t selective with the quotes they made.

But let’s be clear – this was an accident at a Nuclear Power Plant – so it is definitely nuclear related. That said, nuclear power plants have clearly delineated radioactive / non-radioactive parts, so what I think they are saying is that the steam was from the non-radioactive part. I can understand why they want to reassure the public that this was not a leak of radioactive steam, but if I was writing the PR it would focus on the tragedy of people being hurt first, and tag on a reassurance at the end.

OTOH, you would expect a Nuclear Power Plant to have rigorous safety processes for the nuclear side, and for that to equally carry over into the non-nuclear side – safety processes that would prevent all accidents of this magnitude. So, I think that this does say something about EDF’s nuclear safety risks.